Links

A note from my friend Ashish: “To check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Should your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset. So even if the thief changes the SIM card your phone will be totally useless. If everybody did this, there would be no point in stealing mobile phones.” ...

The Gartner Group, which focused on IT strategy, has launched GartnerG2, which will talk about business strategy.

Intruiging, but Collins (author of Built to Last) finds that the most successful executives are filled with self-doubt and humility.

Envisionet filed for Chapter 11 (they’re bankrupt), and sent a reassuring e-mail to their employees, telling them it was business as usual.

BCG New Delhi is now officially on the BCG world map.

Changemakers.net is a journal/portal for social entrepreneurship. That is, people who’re changing society in a new way. Normally, I wouldn’t have given this a second thought, but the site appears so extensive, and the concept so intruiging, that I think it’s worth a browse. DigitalDivide.org is based on a similar theme, except for the Internet world.

Keep up with Yahoo’s buzz.

If you don’t believe in online theft, read the diaries of hackers who make six figures, or stores of junk-mail hoaxes. If you’ve already been had, share your sorrow at Card cops.

And now you can send out your genes into space. You write a poem on your photo, stick your hair on it, and they’ll throw it into space. Read the FAQ. Oh, and by the way, it costs $50. If they can store 4.5 million submissions, and get $30 per submission (after discounts), they still make $135 million. Plus merchandise, advertising, etc. How much does it cost to launch a spacecraft? (NASA lets you send your name to Mars for free, though. I signed up and got a certificate.)

Carl Steadman’s book, NetMogul, is evolving online. It’s about dot-com startups. What I liked best was the way the book has been formatted online.

Here’s a new one. A study shows that unhappy workers are better than happy ones. Throw the Hawthorne effect out of the window.

If you have a POP account and want to read mails on it, MailReader.com offers a good web interface. Their mission statement is a revelation.

After the good worm, we now have the social worm, which searches for child porn and reports it. This is starting a Robin Hood-esque trend.

Nomic is a game that you play by changing the rules of the game. You start with an initial set of rules and then players can vote to change the rules. Steve Gardner has produced a summary of many such games played on the Internet. If you’re interested in legislation, or online games, this is an interesting topic.

I shifted from Netscape Navigator to Internet Explorer because I could cut and paste tables from IE to Excel. But now that I’ve downloaded Opera 5.11, used its zoom function, it’s gesture keys, and so on, I’m moving over to Opera. Long live Opera! (Which, given Netscape’s fate, is perhaps no more than a fond hope.)

While in the US services sector employment is falling, high tech employment, which is about 8% of the services sector, continues to grow. Meaning technology is still growing, despite the recession. Strange!

Orbitz, the travel site backed by Delta, Northwest and American, is online. It cuts through travel agents and lets passengers book flight tickets directly with the airlines. (I tried booking a flight from Mumbai to Bangkok, but for some reason, it kept giving me an error.)

By the end of the year, Bangalore will become a zero piracy zone. First, the Karnataka Government will try and eliminate all piracy within. Then it’ll appoint compliance officers who’ll walk into offices and check randomly. And this will reduce piracy. Right. What of corruption?

After B2C and B2B, is it now going to be B2E?

The Indian Patent Facilitating Centre helps Indians develop and register patents.